Building Considerations for Commercial Rooftop Greenhouses

Rooftop greenhouses, including commercial rooftop greenhouse options, are becoming a more popular option for commercial growers interested in tapping into the “buy local” market for urban centers. They take up no additional land and are ideal for urban areas or small lots where a traditional greenhouse is not possible or practical. Roofs can be considered as wasted surfaces, and represent an important area of potential growth for urban agriculture. The green roof movement can also be incorporated into greenhouse roofs. There are of course numerous growing obstacles to overcome: working in a downtown environment has challenges for transportation of material inputs, and the smaller scale of a rooftop versus farm greenhouse makes efficiencies of scale not possible in most cases.

But assuming a case can be made for the business model of growing in a greenhouse downtown Manhattan, they also make for a challenging greenhouse structure to design and build.

One of our sister companies, JGS Limited, specializes in rooftop greenhouse design and construction, and they recommend always going with a company that has experience with rooftop greenhouses due to the many considerations that need to be made. For starters, the building/assembly of a commercial greenhouse construction requires special crews. Unlike building on the ground, access to the roof is limited and oftentimes, cranes are required to lift the structural components. Some projects even require the builders to lift all the components up to the roof using an elevator, which changes how the structure can be designed. In addition, each commercial greenhouse construction is different because of the differing load bearing locations for the posts, and considerations need to be made for higher wind loading due to elevation and cross winds.

To learn more about greenhouse design and rooftop greenhouse construction, visit JGS Limited.